Matas Skamarakas

Matas Skamarakas was born on 21 September 1988 in Ariogala, Raseiniai district, Lithuania.

He earned a Master’s degree in Administration from Kaunas University of Technology in 2012.

From 2007 to 2011, he studied for a Bachelor’s degree in Sports Pedagogy at the Lithuanian Sports University in Kaunas.

He graduated from Ariogala Secondary School in 2007.

In 2018–2019, Skamarakas worked as a sports teacher at the Maironis Gymnasium in Betygala.

He was a teacher at Ariogala Gymnasium from 2012 to 2023.

From 2011 to 2023, he worked as an athletics coach at the Raseiniai sports center.

His career has been entirely in the public sector. An official record of his employment (2011–2023) lists only public institutions – for example, he was an athletics coach at the Raseiniai sports center and a physical education teacher at local schools. No private-sector jobs or business roles are indicated in his work history.

In October 2023, Skamarakas introduced a proposal in the Seimas to bolster financial support for young families buying their first home, noting that funding for this housing subsidy program had been sharply reduced.

Matas Skamarakas has been a member of the Seimas (Lithuanian parliament) since 26 September 2023.

He assumed the role of Vice Mayor of Raseiniai District Municipality on 15 May 2023.

In 2023, he served as the Deputy Mayor of Raseiniai.

He has been a member of the Social Democratic Party’s national presidium (governing board) since 2019.

He was an elected member of the Raseiniai District Municipal Council from 2015 until 2023.

He is a member of the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania (Lietuvos socialdemokratų partija).

Skamarakas is the head of the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party’s Raseiniai district branch.

As of late 2024, he serves as the Deputy Chair of the Seimas Committee on Rural Affairs.

He is also a member of the Seimas Youth and Sports Affairs Commission, a position he took on in the 2024–2028 parliamentary term.

In the Seimas, he serves as a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.

He was re-elected to the Seimas in the 2024 parliamentary elections, winning the Raseiniai–Josvainių single-member constituency. In the second round on 27 October 2024, he secured roughly 70% of the vote, defeating opponent Vida Ačienė.

Skamarakas has won his parliamentary seat via single-member constituency elections (the Raseiniai district) rather than through the national party list. In both 2023 (by-election) and 2024, he secured a mandate by winning in his district.

He was officially sworn in as a new Member of the Seimas on 26 September 2023.

In a September 2023 by-election for the Raseiniai–Kėdainiai constituency, he won the second round with 56.65% of the vote, defeating his opponent Andrius Bautronis (who received 43.35%).

In the first round of the 2023 Raseiniai–Kėdainiai by-election (held 3 September 2023), Skamarakas placed second with 20.41% of the vote, trailing TS-LKD candidate Andrius Bautronis who led with 30.46%.

In the 2023 municipal elections, Skamarakas ran for Raseiniai District Mayor and finished third, receiving 13.55% of the vote.

Skamarakas assumed a Seimas seat in late September 2023, filling the vacancy left by Arvydas Nekrošius after the latter was elected Mayor of Raseiniai.

Starting in 2024, the base salary for a rank-and-file Seimas member increased significantly after a legal reform – an ordinary MP’s net monthly pay rose from roughly €2,183 to about €3,781. This pay hike (eliminating the former tenure bonus) means Skamarakas’s parliamentary income nearly doubled at the outset of the 2024–2028 term.

While serving as Raseiniai District Vice Mayor in 2023, Skamarakas earned roughly €3,500 per month (gross salary).

Public asset declarations indicate Skamarakas is not a wealthy politician – his declared assets are relatively ordinary. (In the 2020 elections, the average LSDP candidate declared about €186,764 in total assets, a ballpark in which Skamarakas’s own holdings likely fall.)

He led the local association "Ariogalos Tauras" from 2015 to 2023.

Since 2015, he has served as a member of the Raseiniai District Youth Affairs Council.

In May 2025, Skamarakas canceled a planned trip to a Višegrád Group agriculture meeting in Warsaw at the last minute in order to remain in Vilnius for an important parliamentary vote. As part of the ruling coalition, he and fellow social democrats called off such foreign visits to ensure full attendance during a crucial Seimas voting session.

In October 2022, he wrote an op-ed titled "Jaunos šeimos – biurokratų įkaitės" ("Young Families – Hostages of Bureaucracy"), criticizing that young families seeking state housing subsidies for a first home were getting trapped in bureaucracy. Skamarakas highlighted that many such families lost their desired house or even down-payment due to slow and insufficient funding of the subsidy program.

In September 2020, he penned an opinion piece voicing alarm about the pandemic’s impact on schools. Skamarakas cautioned that COVID-19’s spread could soon force masks to be mandatory in classrooms and that a return to remote learning was only a matter of time, questioning whether schools were prepared.

In December 2019, as a Raseiniai councilor, Skamarakas wrote an op-ed titled "Nacionalinė idėja – ant bedugnės krašto" ("National Idea – On the Edge of an Abyss"), in which he criticized the government for reneging on promised education funding and warned of a crisis of leadership and transparency in Lithuania’s education system.

Matas Skamarakas is married and has one son and two daughters.

He is married to a woman named Eglė, and they have three children: a son, Tauras, and two daughters, Gustė and Gabija.